Briefs

CDAC launches next-generation supercomputer
PARAM Padma, India’s most powerful supercomputer yet, was inaugurated by Arun Shourie, minister for Disinvestment, Communications and Information Technology at C-DAC’s Knowledge Park in Bangalore. The latest supercomputer in the PARAM line will run C-DAC’s high performance communication software environment and is housed at C-DAC’s terascale supercomputing facility. With this addition, India becomes the fifth country in the world after the US, Japan, Israel and China to have a supercomputing cluster with peak computing performance of one teraflop.

Xilinx appoints CG-CoreEl as authorised training provider
Xilinx, Inc., the world’s leading programmable logic supplier, has announced the appointment of CG-CoreEl as its Authorised Training Provider (ATP) in India. CG-CoreEl will provide a broad array of international standard Xilinx programmable logic training services through its Sandeepani training centre in Bangalore.

Aviva takes BOT route for BPO facility in India
Aviva, the world’s seventh-largest insurance group and the biggest in the UK, is in the process of setting up a call centre and claims processing operation in India by the end of 2003. The company intends to set up its business process outsourcing (BPO) operations through a partner on a ‘build, operate and transfer’ (BOT) model in the country, initially creating around 1,000 jobs.

35 percent dip in Aztec’s revenues
Aztec Software and Technology Services announced a 35 percent fall in revenues at Rs 7.61 crore in comparison to last quarter. For the quarter ended March 31 2003, the company posted a turnover of Rs 7.61 crore and a net loss of Rs 2.82 crore (including a one time hit of Rs 1.05 crore for management restructuring). William C Brown, president and CEO, has stepped down from his positions in the company. Effective immediately, S Parthasarathy, chairman of the Board, co-founder and previous CEO of Aztec, has taken over as the position of CEO.

Navision India’s enterprise business solutions are now VAT compliant
Navision India has made its enterprise business solution products, Microsoft Business Solution–Navision and the newly launched Microsoft Business Solution–Axapta, VAT compliant. It is now possible to define different VAT business and product posting groups, make computations based on user defined formula, attach the VAT percentages that would be applicable, analyse the impact on inventory and report to the Government.

Datacons achieves CMM Level 4
Datacons has been assessed at Level 4 of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). This assessment was carried out by SEI authorised lead assessors from KPMG. The SEI CMM is widely regarded as the best means to measure the quality and maturity of an organisation’s software development and maintenance processes. The Level 4 assessment signifies that Datacons has well-defined, measured processes for developing and maintaining software solutions.

— EC Bureaus and The Financial Express